Working God's Mischief

by Glen Cook

  Hourli nodded to Hecht. This piracy was what she had come to report. Hecht said, “Help the captain so we don’t lose much time.”

  Hourli smiled. It was a wicked slash, anticipating. “Oh, yes. Let me talk to the girls.”

  “The girls” had gathered on the foredeck, Fastthal and Sprenghul shimmering black.

  Hecht called out, “Pella. Where are you?”

  The boy hustled up. “Breaking out some grenados, Dad.”

  “Good idea. Take them to my friends. Show them how they work.”

  “Dad?” Disappointment filled the boy’s face.

  “If we get close enough to throw those ourselves we’ll be close enough for them to shoot us back.”

  Pella muttered but, moments later, he and two staffers were lugging a case of grenados toward the Shining Ones. Below, oarsmen prepared to take Ghebulli Resteino from sail to muscle power. The rowers were neither slaves nor criminals, as was the case on most warships. Only free men worked the ships of Aparion.

  “Oh, hell,” Hecht grumbled halfheartedly. The Chooser sisters had made no effort to hide their nature while flashing toward the pirate flagship. Hourli pounded her own forehead with the heel of her right hand.

  Flashes appeared aboard the flagship. It took some time for the noise to arrive. Shouting soon followed. Then the Choosers returned for more explosives.

  Now they went after the Dateonese vessel’s attackers. Those smaller craft were having limited luck breaking away.

  Hecht wondered why the Choosers bothered with the bombs. He went forward to ask.

  “Because they like the smoke and bangs,” Pella said, before Hourli could answer.

  The boy would understand. Hecht asked Hourli, “How do we cover this up? I mean, Fastthal and Sprenghul.”

  “I’ll do what I can. It won’t be enough. We can’t undo what’s been seen. I’ll twist it so people who hear about it from people who heard about it from people who might have been here will assume that it’s mostly exaggeration.”

  “Keep the suspicion of deviltry out of it.”

  “Not possible in the prevailing religious climate.”

  “Uh?”

  “God doesn’t manifest. Anything supernatural that does manifest must be an agent of the Adversary. You know that.”

  Hecht sighed. Of course.

  He looked to the masthead. The banners of the Righteous and Commander of the Righteous were up for all to see.

  Hourli said, “There is one way to manage the story exactly, one hundred percent.”

  “Why do I think I’m not going to like this?”

  “Because you won’t. It’s not your way.”

  “And?”

  “Leave no witnesses.”

  Hecht trembled. He felt weak for a moment. No witnesses. These allies could make that happen. A few score pirates, some Dateonese, whoever was on that wallowing coaster from out west, hustling to get away from the action, the crew of Ghebulli Resteino, any Righteous who could not be counted on to keep quiet … Maybe seven hundred people? That was manageable.

  But Hourli was right. He would not do that.

  The ship’s master began to close with the pirate flagship.

  * * *

  Ghebulli Resteino arrived off Envi, a small port twenty-two miles up the coast from Shartelle, in company with four pirate vessels taken in prize. The crews had been consigned to the fishes. Freed Chaldarean prisoners were helping work the captured ships. The rescued Dateonese Consiglieri Reversi Ono continued on southward, destination Kagure.

  Ghebulli Resteino anchored out with her prizes. The sun dropped below the western horizon. Hecht had a boat put over. He went ashore with a dozen men and the Shining Ones, the latter trembling in anticipation.

  They would feast at the Well of Peace before morning. Their excitement was contagious. Lord Arnmigal felt the lure himself, some.

  The Well of Peace might be feeble and misnamed but it was a well of power and it was within reach.

  Campfires burned like shoals of stars across the hills south of Envi. Lord Arnmigal had overtaken his host.

  * * *

  The main fortifications of Shartelle surmounted a headland rising sixty feet above the White Sea. The foundations of the wall, standing thirty feet tall to seaward and as high as one hundred twenty feet to landward, were rooted in the stone of the headland. Entrance was through a massive double barbican behind a dry moat thirty feet deep. The rubble from the moat had been used to fill a curtain wall twenty feet high a hundred yards in advance of the main wall. That lay behind a ditch twelve feet deep. A further wall lay another hundred yards in front of that. All the walls had towers offering enfilading fires.

  The harbors that made Shartelle such a prize lay below the headland, to either hand, behind formidable walls of their own. Those stretched out to sea atop breakwaters. There were towers at their ends capable of laying heavy fires on enemy ships. They could hoist chains that would keep ships out of the harbors. Shartelle’s own fleet was substantial. It could bring in supplies sufficient to keep the city going indefinitely. A siege centuries earlier had persisted thirteen years with no success.

  Lord Arnmigal considered the situation. “Our friends from Dateon and Aparion are too optimistic. We can’t take that by storm. Our falcons won’t help. They aren’t heavy enough to break those walls.”

  “So we’ll use trickery,” Titus Consent said.

  “Or ferocity.”

  Hecht glanced at Hourli. He was uncomfortable with her now, and not just because she was so much more potent a presence after having visited the Well of Peace. She was always close by, now. Nearer than the Choosers, usually—and it seemed he needed her to be. He was more confident and decisive when she was.

  He suspected that her interest was, in fact, more than personal, serving the cause of the Shining Ones.

  He said, “Suppose we go with the historical option and just bypass Shartelle? Keep it closed up on the land side while we deal with easier targets?”

  Consent said, “Maybe not the best choice psychologically.”

  Hourli agreed. “The Commander of the Righteous has a reputation. He shouldn’t dodge his first tough challenge.”

  Hecht grunted. Too true. Events at Shartelle would shape his future in the Holy Lands. Taking the city would guarantee less resistance elsewhere, later.

  “There is a problem. I promised Heris not to butcher the population.”

  Hourli said, “There must be people who didn’t treat her right.”

  “They got theirs already. Grade Drocker was ferocious.”

  Hourli said, “I’ll consult Heris. You study the situation here. You’ll find a way, you being you.”

  “What was that?” Titus asked after Hourli walked away.

  “I don’t know. She’s changed. She acts like I’m one of them instead of the Godslayer.”

  “You aren’t even that, anymore. Heris has taken that. And she wants to keep it.”

  Titus was right. Heris was at war with the Night.

  “Let’s walk the ground again. We could overtop that first curtain wall with an old-fashioned ramp.” But he was eying the northern harbor. If he could run a causeway to the mole and escalade that wall …

  Titus said, “We have the Instrumentalities. Like it or not, people think we have supernatural allies. Why not go ahead and use them?”

  Hecht grunted. He did not want to rely too much on the Shining Ones. He did not want to remind the world that the Commander of the Righteous was strange. He troubled the world enough already. “Tell me about the tower overlooking the main barbican.”

  Titus said, “Practically a wonder of the world. Almost two hundred feet tall. Called the Tower of the Bats. Come sundown you can see why. They come out by the thousands. It has collapsed twice during earthquakes. They built it back taller and stronger each time.”

  “Can we make it fall on the barbican?”

  “Maybe with firepowder smuggled in by our supernatural friends.”

 
* * *

  Another day. Hourli was back from seeing Heris, whom she had had trouble finding. “I have a better idea who has to be protected, now.”

  Hecht grunted. He was distracted. His engineers, after interviewing captives who knew the Tower of the Bats, said that it could not be dropped onto the barbican. The stonework would not tilt enough without breaking up first. A wave of rubble might do some damage, though.

  “Let’s drop it, anyway,” Hecht said. “Just to show that we can.”

  Hourli said, “We’d be more useful picking off key men.”

  Hecht grunted again. That would cause confusion.

  Hourli continued, “I hate to add to your worries. There is another problem developing that will shape every choice you make from the moment I tell you.”

  “Now what?”

  “The Empress Helspeth has decided to join you. She is in Hypraxium. The ascendant and the Bastard are with her. I asked Wife to watch over them.”

  Hecht gaped. Impossible! But … she would. Helspeth would indeed, likely gathering the men she trusted least into her escort. No doubt her deadly uncles would be with her, too, to keep the circus manageable.

  The woman was crazy.

  He should have seen it coming. It was more in character for her than it had been for Katrin.

  Her father would have done it, too. It was in the Ege blood.

  “Oh, sigh! I don’t like it even a little but there won’t be any way to change her mind. I’ll have to make the Holy Lands safe before she gets here.”

  Impossible, of course, even with the enthusiastic assistance of the Shining Ones.

  36. Shamramdi, Lucidia: When God Averted His Eye

  Nassim Alizarin watched the disguised Ansa leave the Shamramdi house, youthful shoulders slumped. “Bone, I wish we could do something. But Indala has tied our hands.”

  Indala al-Sul Halaladin was distressed and severely depressed by the ease with which the crusaders crushed any who resisted them. Each engagement left the Believers involved defeated in detail. The Righteous seemed to know the very secret intentions of the commanders of the Faithful. Only the rare minor patrol and unknown captain enjoyed any success.

  Nassim grumbled, “He doesn’t fully see the horrors possible if we allow er-Rashal to indulge his madness.”

  “Could that be worse than the Arnhander invasion?” Young Az demanded.

  Nassim glowered at Mohkam, who said, “He just bulled past me, sir!”

  “Those who rise in the shadow cast by a great man sometimes confuse that shadow with their own, thinking it relieves them of the burden of civil behavior.” He met the boy’s eyes.

  Young Az reddened. He opened his mouth twice, probably to apologize. But he did not do so.

  “Why am I gifted with this intrusion?” Nassim asked with none of the warmth that he could not help showing the boy normally. Azim did not miss that.

  “That strange boy. He had tattoos under his eyes. Who was he?”

  There was no reason to dissemble. “One of the Ansa, begging for help. Er-Rashal has started taking children.”

  Worse news, er-Rashal had discovered a way to make firepowder explode from afar. The discharges Nassim had heard while descending the Mountain had been the sorcerer’s test of the new spell formula. That time the madman had not been wise enough to stay well back. That had cost him valuable weeks recuperating.

  The Ansa could have gotten him then had not tribal politics interfered. Those who wanted to pretend that er-Rashal was no real threat attained ascendancy till the sorcerer started stealing children.

  There was no helping the Ansa now. Perhaps next week, or next month, if Indala discovered a formula for success against the approaching crusaders. They had left a third of their strength to garrison captured cities while fugitives from those cities had joined Indala. Today the Great Shake’s army outnumbered the Unbelievers by ten thousand.

  Scouts were looking for the perfect place to destroy them.

  Nassim was not optimistic. Indala’s captains wanted to fight where horsemen could gain glory, ignoring the fact that similar horsemen had been defeated repeatedly already. The captains argued that those fools had chosen constrained battlegrounds where horsemen had inadequate maneuvering room.

  Nassim thought that the crusaders would ignore the Believer cavalry—along with the pride of their own equestrian class.

  Captain Tage had chosen intimates who could think in whole-force terms and least-cost victories, disdaining individual combats and heroics. Those men compelled their followers to conform. Continuous success had a way of eroding objections.

  Young Az suffered the blindness of his class. He would not see. “We will sweep in and tempt them to charge. We will flee. They will pursue. We will keep on till their mounts are exhausted, then we will turn.”

  The Mountain did not tell the boy that the man who had created the Righteous knew eastern light-horse tactics intimately. He did say, “They will ignore you.”

  “We’ll soon find out, Uncle. I came to warn you that the army moves north tomorrow.”

  Nassim sighed. “May God be generous.”

  Old Az agreed. “He has delivered punishments enough, lately.”

  The morning news from Shartelle said that the crusaders had sailed fireships into the northern harbor. Most friendly shipping had been consumed. The men operating the chain had thought they were welcoming a relief convoy from Dreanger. The ships were Dreangerean but had been captured by the fleets of the Firaldian trading republics. Rumors said those fleets had had supernatural assistance.

  Marines captured one of the towers guarding the harbor entrance, too. Shartelle was cut off from the sea, now, too. Heavy firepowder weapons had been installed to discourage relief efforts from that direction.

  The Righteous were using stone from the captured tower to create a causeway leading to the low point in the wall facing the harbor.

  Mischief was happening inside Shartelle, too, evidently by crusader agents who had infiltrated before the siege began—though none of those agents had yet been identified.

  As Indala’s host drifted northward, in theory thirty-eight thousand strong, levies and militias tried to relieve Shartelle. Commanded by Indala’s cousin Kharsa, they were tasked with investing the crusaders from outside, besieging the besiegers. Their numbers and their fighting skills proved insufficient. Few were motivated, either. The Righteous obliterated them. Prisoners were put to work as siege labor.

  The Commander of the Righteous led from the fore, as terrible in the fighting as an angel of death. None withstood him. Kharsa himself, renowned across Qasr al-Zed, fell to the Commander’s lightning spear.

  Meantime, Indala’s host trickled onto the Plain of Tum, which his captains had chosen as the place where the invaders would be humbled. The omens were uniformly excellent.

  “This is not good,” Mowfik grumbled. The renegade Sha-lug were at the head of the van, Indala being confident that Nassim Alizarin would see more clearly than most.

  The Mountain saw despair in the offing. He saw disaster.

  The Righteous had arrived already. They were camped on the south bank of a stream beneath low hills marking the northern verge of the plain. They were positioned exactly as Indala had prayed they would be, arrayed to come onto the field as he would have them do.

  Nassim did not command the van. Still, he sent word to young Az warning that the Unbeliever appeared to know Indala’s thinking and meant to give him what he wanted. Then they would eat him alive.

  The message had no effect. Nassim received no reply. Indala commenced the action before his forces all arrived, sending riders forward. They skirmished with light cavalry from the crusader force, mercenaries recruited from the Antal. Most were Pramans. Some appeared to be Hu’n-tai At.

  Frightening, that. They would be here not to help the Righteous but to observe their ways while helping weaken Qasr al-Zed.

  The skirmishing lasted all day. Casualties were minimal. Young men from both sides wanted
to show their courage.

  Evening brought a brief round of negotiations. Nassim Alizarin was privileged to observe. Indala did honor his wisdom.

  The invaders made no religious demands, which had puzzled the Believers from the beginning. The outsiders never insisted that only their own faith be practiced in lands they ruled. They were not particularly tolerant but were never as harsh as the Believers were once they triumphed over Unbelievers.

  The invaders did make demands. They were confident. Many also came in disguise, Nassim believed.

  Afterward, Alizarin told Indala, “Those who did the talking were not in charge. They were lords and captains but not decision makers. Those whose wills matter were the younger, leaner men in back.”

  “That was my impression, as well. They measured us for shrouds while the others blustered.”

  Nassim said, “Begging pardon, Shake. These old ears heard no bluster, just supreme confidence.”

  “Why? What cause can they have?”

  “The old one, the Admiral, said it. This is not the Well of Days and their commander is not Rogert du Tancret.”

  “You let them defeat you before you face their swords?”

  “Not at all. I just caution you against overconfidence.”

  At that point young Az paraphrased, “‘God’s Will shall be seen in the battle’s outcome.’” He said it aloud without meaning to do so. His uncle had said the same on more than one occasion. The remark captured the core precept of the Faith. God would decide. God knew the outcome beforehand. There was no evading the Will of God. And so forth, denying cause and effect in the ordinary world.

  Indala responded, “God favors those who plan ahead and have the numbers.”

  * * *

  The Faithful launched attacks by horsemen who shot arrows as they swept past the face of the ranked enemy infantry. The infantry remained behind their shields and endured. Light field ballistae flung bolts from behind them, doing little damage but compelling the horsemen to loose their shafts from farther than they preferred. The artillerymen aimed for horses instead of riders. The bigger targets panicked when injured.

  When riders approached in too dense a formation a firepowder weapon would belch a storm of iron darts.